Using magic required a significant amount of focus more than anything else. Magic was there for those who could call on it, but it simply existed without guidance. A massive force of creation that went where it wanted and did as it pleased unless someone was strong enough to channel it somewhere specific and into doing something specific.
The City of Illumination taught magic as having characteristics that certain wizards were more in tune with than others. There was even a small portion of them that believed the connection between a wizard and the magic could be enhanced by using special materials like certain stones and plants.
None of them had actually been able to prove it worked beyond incremental improvements that were never reliable, but there was always just enough to convince the ones who wanted to see it.
Eirian had never found anything that helped her control or her connect with her magic that was hard work and dedication. She didn't trust the City of Illumination, too wary of their heavy-handed insistence that anyone with magic belonged to them.
Eirian didn't belong to anyone but herself, let along those stuck-up fuckers. She'd had to learn it all herself through trial and error, and maybe there were moments that were frustrating and when it would have easier to have someone helping her who understood. Eric had no magic and while he understood it value in a strategic way, he had little interest in how it worked, and he could only handle so much of Eirian going on and on about magical theory.
The magic in the medallion had mixed with the poison and infected Chenzhou so deeply that there wasn't a single cell that wasn't riddle with it. His body was so worn down that even if she managed to burn out the poison there wouldn't be much left. Eirian's magic could heal him, but it would take time.
Time Chenzhou didn't have.
She needed to both at the same time.
She'd never done anything like it before.
She could do small things simultaneously, but pushing magic to do two things at once was different than trying juggle balls or wield a sword and a shield at the same time. Or even two swords, something Eirian had stupidly tried for a very short period when she was younger and nearly decapitated herself.
Thankfully, no one had been around to witness it and she'd never been stupid enough to try it again.
Chenzhou was so still and pale, but the miasma wasn't. Dark and wiggling and vicious and everywhere.
And really, all of it only came down to one thing.
Eirian couldn't not try. For Chenzhou's sake and the Camelia's. To stop that hatred that had started this whole thing.
And for her pride. Eirian hadn't yet met a challenge she hadn't eventually been able to overcome.
And she wasn't going to let this one be the first where she didn't even try.
Eirian's magic had always felt like fire.
It feels like an inferno now as she puts one hand on Chenzhou's chest and the other on his forehead and pushes as much as she can into him. She pushes it at the miasma, sharper than any blade and tightly under control that it cleaves the miasma from Chenzhou with as little additional damage to him as possible and in the same breath she pushes more of her magic into heal.
Generating cellular growth is far more difficult than cutting out the rot, but the miasma is powerful enough to grow back at an insane pace and she has to cut it out again and again while pushing the cells to heal a little bit more each time.
She doesn't know how much time passes or how much magic she uses. It's impossible to focus on anything else while using this much magic and there are a couple of times when Chenzhou almost slips away despite her focus.
She has to push her magic into his heart twice to start it again and the miasma suddenly surges back from his left lung twice, and then somehow from his right knee, just when she thinks she's gotten it all.
But she does get it.
Once she finally manages to chase the last dregs of the miasma from his body Chenzhou is a mere shell of himself.
And there wasn't much left to begin with.
She focuses on all her attention healing him, careful and slow as she remembers one of the first medical things she ever learned.
That starving bodies had to be re-introduced to substance slowly, because even a normal sized meal after you'd been starving could overwhelm the body and kill you.
Eirian hadn't come all this way and given this much effort to kill Chenzhou now, so she takes her time. Forces her magic to go slow and soft as it seeps into Chenzhou's body and feeds it just enough to restore it a level where he won't die as soon as it's withdrawn.
Somehow, doing that is more exhausting than cutting out the miasma and she feels her left shoulder blade start to burn. It goes from warm too hot to the touch to searing pain in a shape that Eirian doesn't recognize but is aware enough to realize is something specific.
Her magic's never marked her before, but it's not unheard of. There's one magical mark that's know throughout the entire rock, even though it's so rare most of it consider it nothing but a fable.
A Defender's Mark.
Eirian had only read about a few cases and most of those were scant on the details. Malbec was one, but there wasn't even a rumor of what his mark had looked like.
The only thing all the stories had in common was that the mark was created by a powerful magic, and it stretched across the back shoulders of the person who earned it. No one was certain why the magic marked so few, there were certainly wizards throughout history who claimed to be more powerful that the few who'd received a Defender's Mark.
And no one knew what the mark was even for.
But all of those with it were known for one thing, other than their magic of course…
They were all heroes.
~ tbc